In Budapest, Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated that European Union funding for Ukraine should not come from the EU budget and should be subject to a “sensible” timeline. Orban expressed his belief that allocating 50 billion euros ($54.70 billion) from the EU budget to Ukraine over five years would be a poor decision during a news conference.
Last week, all 27 EU member states except Hungary agreed to initiate accession talks with Ukraine despite Russia’s invasion, managing to bypass Orban’s opposition by having him leave the room during the summit’s decision-making process. Orban confirmed that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz proposed this solution.
However, the leaders were unable to overcome Orban’s resistance to restructuring the EU budget to allocate 50 billion euros to Kyiv and provide more funding for other initiatives, such as managing migration. It is anticipated that EU leaders will revisit the issue at an emergency summit on Feb 1.
Orban stated, “They want to give the money to Ukraine from inside the EU budget, Hungary wants to give it outside the EU budget. They have the possibility – if we don’t agree on this – to resolve this outside the budget but don’t have the option of resolving this from the EU budget without Hungarian approval.”
Alternatively, the EU could potentially assist Ukraine through an agreement between 26 member states and Ukraine, which would also prevent Budapest from accessing associated EU funds, including those for migration. A substantial portion of funds for Hungary had been suspended by the EU due to concerns about Budapest’s impact on democratic checks and balances in the country. Although the EU released some of these funds last week after acknowledging Budapest’s judicial reforms, approximately 20 billion euros remain frozen.
Orban emphasized that Hungary does not want to tie the issue of suspended EU funds for Budapest to the allocation of funds for Ukraine. He stated, “We do not want to link financial assistance to be given to Ukraine with any Hungarian financial issues … this would also violate the EU principle of loyal cooperation.”
($1 = 0.9141 euros)
(Reporting by Gergely Szakacs and Krisztina Than; Editing by Susan Fenton)
